FEDERMAN'S BLOG [the laugh that laughs at the laugh...]

Laugh: yes because when some guy weeps somewhere in the world there is always some other guy who laughs somewhere else: happy balance! Never fails its normal equilibrium: laugh or cry it all comes out the same in the end!

November 01, 2006

THE LOST SONATA / LA SONATE PERDUE

– did you get la zonate

– I got zonate l’amour insulate & sent message late this morning (but it came back the system does not recognize RF.com --

– as long as you got the sonate then all is well - it would be terrible if you had gotten a symphony --

– such a lovely production the high superdizzinging shot of manhattan washington square – a terrific confident reader friendly production

– not bad but -- there is always a but -- the Canadian publisher insisted that the name Sucette should be changed to Suzette because Sucette was too suggestively obscene for Canadian morality -- and I understand that they also changed some words to French Canadian from French French – I didn’t read the book – new books depress mebut it doesn't matter because my french publisher is bringing out the correct version in September -- we are already working on the cover -- here look at the photo we are going to put on the cover -- and of course Sucette Blowjob Lollypop is back in the story

– I am glad you too are depressed....if we can lay the lead apron upon each other maybe we'llsink far enough down to breathe

– I do not however get depressed the American way -- I get depressed the old European way -- which means that my depression is steep in medieval tradition

– did you get the sonate d’amour – must have gotten lost

– where

– make an effort Ace and read thisprobably the best and most correct reading ever written about le roman des nouilles – now called Quite ou Doublethis is from AF

– forget the French dicko – I did an English version for you – ignore the usual typos – my spelling is going down the drain as fast as my hair

– letter to ma friend RFMay 15, 2004

Damn asshole shit! Impossible to listen on this fucking machine. I keep trying to connect the France-Culture site, I keep trying to download the program, but when I click, the machine tells me that it cannot find the ad hoc application. Sonofabitch. Wants to prevent me from listening to you. But there is one thing this fucking machine cannot prevent me from doing, that’s to read you!

My dear RF, you must be saying to yourself that I don’t write you any more and that I don’t think of you. Error! I only think about you and at your superb book [all your superb books, I should say]! I think about the young man who lands one of these beautiful mornings just like that before the statue of liberties.

He looks in front of him [tries], not behind. Even if look forward makes him uneasy. Rather intimidating, America, for someone who just got off the boat just like that one morning. But he doesn’t feel like looking backward, the little immigrant, as if behind him there is nothing, nothing any more, if only a vague horrible nightmare.

Nothing. Except what’s in his little suitcase [with the cord tied around it]. Not much, in other words. An immigrant, it’s someone who tries to forget et to start again from zero [to begin a new life, as it is said]. Even if in front there quite a thick fog right now. And besides, he does not feel like telling the story of his life. And even if he tried, he couldn’t do it. He has no tongue, no language for that. Even if the people he meets ask only for that. His story. [They like to feel sorry, as if it were a way to acquit themselves from some debt!]

Finished! Everything is in the suitcase. That is to say, no much: a few old souvenirs no doubt [the sad dark eyes of his mother], and especially the French language that he still speaks.

But the French Language for the moment is rather a handicap. He would prefer to speak English, and understand once and for all what the people are saying around him. One must know English when one is in America, if only to be able to ask where the toilets are inc case of need. That’s the priority: to learn English.

Not to become a famous American poet, nor a distinguished professor of comparative literature in some fancy university. Non, learn English in order simply to live, to exist. To survive. One must be able to talk the language to rent a room where he’ll be able to sleep, and buy himself a few boxes of noodles, with or without tomato sauce, in order not to starve. Yes, to survive. To begin living for real, if possible [even if living proves not to be easy, and one must get up early in the morning to try and find a job. Fucking alarm clock!]

He doesn’t want to go back to the farm, or do the train thing again, nor re-enter his closet. One prefers a life of souvenirs even when the souvenirs are repulsive. One could even say that what saves him, it’s the violent instinct of life, that gives him am enormous panicked hard-on [as soon as the subway scene begins – of which you keep saying – and you are right to say it – that it is a very important scene. Symbolically the subway scene represents the center of the discourse, you say page 248.

He’s got guts, the noodle eaters, the noodle, to want to spit is life on paper ...The young man who lands in Nouillorque, is incapable of doing that. Someone else has to do it [even if, in fact, it’s the same person]. But one can laugh, amuse oneself with the typo, make lovely little designs on the page, nonetheless, to write is to a sacred risk: the risk of giving meaning to things, whether one wants to or not, whereas it is always meaning that hurts.

Take cats for example. When they hurt, they simply content themselves to be hurting [that already enough] without adding anything to the pain. A cat may be conscious that it hurts, but not conscious of being unhappy. That is why it never came to the mind of a cat to tell his life story, even full of lies. For us, it’s not the same: To think is to suffer or To suffer is to think.

One understand therefore the eater of noodles must start again and again [a thousand times], before attempting the undertaking ahead, when at each moment he feels like shouting I give up, and stop everything. The fear, yes, because it’s double or nothing

... And so, rather than getting to it and starting for good, the storyteller counts his boxes of noodles, and go over his lists and his additions over and over again totally obsessed with his noodles to the point of get lost in his own calculations, the storyteller builds a fortress of noodles boxes to protect him from the unbearable reality. A way of postponing indefinitely the moment of writing and confront the reality of the writing.

But in spite of this constant pushing away the moment of writing, the book writes itself. That’s the miracle. One only has to look at the Summary of the Discourse to discover everything that has been written, all the topics that have been treated, or just [but that’s not bad] merely touched upon. This is not just any book. Not any novel. Not one of those dumb novels people usually write. Not a book that pretends to reproduce reality the way they pretend it is [as if they really knew!] ... and give answers, but rather a book that attempts to ask questions. Even is some of the questions cannot receive

satisfactory answers. Even is certain of the questions are so frightening they cannot admit any answer. There are very impressive holes in this book, for instance in the pages here and there that escape pagination. In any case, neither answers nor questions exist in nature. Writing invents them.

You must be saying to yourself, that I am stupid to tell you all that. You know it so much better than I. You wrote the book. All I can tell you will never be as beautiful as the book. I should limit myself to the role of a reader, and tell you [even if it’s difficult to say it clearly] what I felt reading it, and why I find it so beautiful. Yes, a book not like the others! At the same time funny and terrible, towards which one feel a profound attachment. A book at the same time strong and not boring. One must have the guts to write this kind of book in our time.

Reading you one learns easily to read in all the direction and with several voices. Up and down, to the right, to the left, in diagonal, in circle and in square!

There is only one page where I almost gave up. That’s the page where the text is written backward. A whole page. I told myself, I suppose I have to use a mirror to read it, but that would be too complicated. So I felt like skipping that page, quietly, without telling any one. You know how it is. One is lazy sometime. Nobody would have known that I skipped that page. I wouldn’t have had to shout it on the roofs that I had been stuck on one of RF’s pages [shame!]

Then I said to myself, non, no reason, AF, you have to get to it. Read the damn page. After all you have all the time in the world. So I started. At the bottom of the page, from right to left [against the grain, one might say] reading each letter one after another, slowly, cool....

Ah! what an experience! Unbelievable! I had jumped 60 years back in time, like when I was learning to read. I was still very young then, and the teacher’s was Madame Pontal. If I remember correctly. You can’t imagine how beautiful she was. And so kind. One felt confident with her. My grand-mother had tried already to teach me how to read, but it didn’t work. You always teach me things I don’t know, I would reproach her. Madame Pontal knew immediately how to do it. With kindness. I like to be taken gently from time to time. So little by little I started recognizing letters, and sometimes the letters would get together the right way. Not always easy. For instance EAU, it’s

not pronounced E, nor A, nor U. How curious! But O ... The best was when suddenly in all this pile o letters, a word would appear, a complete recognizable word ... Well, it’s exactly what happened when I read page 187 of your book, from right to left, from bottom to top, and when I arrived at the top of the page, all the way to the left, I had learned to read! I am sure that Madame Pontal would have been happy for me.

Yes, one should try to explain why I felt such pleasure reading your book. A great part of my pleasure comes perhaps from the admirable harking back to the same scenes [ according to different versions, all the possible point of views, real or imaginary, all true in fact]. Concerning chewing-gun, you ask, and that’s is true for the entire book: how long can you chew the same piece of gun before it feels like a piece of rubber band in your mouth [I noted the page number, 261]. A long time I suppose. I could chew your book for days and days, it will never become like rubber. When the reader comes to the end of the book, he wants more. He asks for more. He almost asks you to now write Amer Eldorado, Aunt Rachel’s Fur, My Body in Nine Parts, and all kinds of poems, like those that can be read in Future Concentration [a title that sums up in a gripping fashion the noodle novel]!

Those who never understand anything will say: all this divergences between the different versions of the same life, where is the truth in all this? The truth! Truth can only come after it has been written, not before. Before, there is only the real, which is tough and incomprehensible. I like when you write [I find that very enlightening].

Page 227: The essential of the story. The search for identity. A young man about 19 years old. All alone. A Frenchman. A Jew. A young-French -Jewish-immigrant-all-alone. That’s what he is. Five essential elements in one person: solitude, youth, race, nationality, status. How can one find one’s identity in such a complex story? How to establish relations with others? How to become connected to others? People stupidly think that the I is given at the beginning, and I only has to follow his existence, his destiny just like that in a linear fashion. Those who read like that have understood nothing. Especially since the one who tells the story [the teller] cannot be entirely confused with the one whose story is told [the protagonist] The one who write is no longer, or rather if not yet the same as the one he is trying to represent. One should not say I, but rather US. Same thing for the girl in the subway, page 228: To walk alone in the street following a young girl with an enormous ass. A black. A beautiful young black American girl with a beautiful ass. These are the five elements that constitute this person: youth, beauty, sex, race, nationality. Does a name suffice to sum up a person? Can a story give meaning to reality?

Everything happens as if your book has been written in order to make possible this moi-nous that is born in the belly of America. As through the writing moi-nous gave himself birth, at last. And the problem was to reach this moment [asymptotic, as the mathematicians say] when the different characters coincide. But one must always start all over again. That’s inevitable. That what a writer’s life is. Always recommencing.

– la mer la mère toujours recommencée

– the only clear good exceptional thing is AF’s birthday letter to you this is the kind of rare "authority" I have been waiting for while trying to become it myself it is one very lovely "letter" just to say that i feel the thrill scooting about the bowels

– this kind of letter can only come from a real writer and AF is a real writer -- a bit younger than us but he has gone through the depressions

met him recently -- but years ago I published stuff in his tarte à la crème magazine spelled tartalacreme – the best there was - very avant-garde

– (as it were!this is what you may never directly say about yr book(work)AF has voiced the voiceless one who is forever speaking

– whatever that means

– I must say more, but this for now! Unsere Geburtstag muss es sein endlich

– oh yes say more -- write a whole book about it

– which book

- the book you were destined to write the day you set eyes on RF

– a memorable day which I cannot recall so depressed am I

– here too superdepressed

– must be normal on our birthday

7 + 3 = 10 --- the 0 drops out - that means you're in the year 1 of your lifestart all over again

-- good -- what is the deep medieval tradition of depressionit lifted yesterday now is returned fill forcefull force

"RF" is temporarily moribund

I like how you break up AF's long paragraphs to squeeze the juice out

a terrifically "willed" piece of writing

when I undepress io'sssay mo(re

what will you do if I die before you do?? think of oreven better what will I do if I die before you

– I get everything you got including all the RF Archives in Peoria

– I got zonate l’amour insulate & sent the message late this morning (but it cam back the system does not recognize mounou.aol.com & noted the credit dear ray give ace for another undeserved act! (or did I suggest sonta? it may sound a bit like soft GSS

– as long as you got the zonate then all is well - it would be terrible if you had gotten a symphony -- moinous is spelled with an I nor a u --

have you started your senility

– I told you - I do not get depressed the American way – I get depressed the old European way -- steep in medieval tradition

when I am depressed I always recite these lines from St. Augustine

do not despair one of the thieves was saveddo not presume one of the thieves was fucked

– the only clear good exceptional thing is AF(!)'s birthday letter to you this is the kind of rare "authority" I have been waiting for while trying to become it myself it is one very lovely "letter" just to say that I feel the thrill scooting about the bowels

– this kind of letter can only come from a real writer and Af is a real writer -- a bit younger than us but he has gone through the depressions

met him recently -- but years ago I published stuff in his magazine tartalacreme -- the best of the time -- very avant-avant-garde

– (as it were!this is what you may never directly say about yr book(work)AF has voiced the voiceless one who is forever speaking

– whatever that means

– I must say more, but this for now! Unsere Geburtstag muss es sein endlich

– oh yes say more - write a whole book about it

– did you get the zonate l’amour

I got zonate l’amour insulate & sent the message late this morning (but it came back the system does not recognize mounou.aol.com & noted the credit dear RF give Ace for another undeserved act! (or did I suggest Sonta? it may sound a bit like soft G

– as long as you got the zonate then all is well - it would be terrible if you had gotten a symphony

– many danks

did you like AF’s reading backward passage?

I mean the big thing in AF is his present capacity to play

he understands you deeply as another kid in the sandboxwith some spectacular toys

– and he has not even read Loose Shoes – the sandbox you wrote for me in that book so I could go play in it

2002 THE TWILIGHT OF THE BUMS (Microfiction, with George Chambers). Altx Press [Boulder, Colorado] Also available as an E- book from Altx.com. German translation (Suhrkamp Verlag), 1998, under the title Penner-Rap. Radio play adaptation under the title The Dialogues of the Bums, Bayerischer Rundfunk, 1997.

2001 LOOSE SHOES: A life Story of Sorts (Fiction in English & French). Weidler Buchverlag (Berlin). German translation under the title Offene Schuhe [same publisher]. Loose Shoes -- Musical composition by Michael Riessler performed in Munich, Ulm, Frankfurt, Cologne, May 2000.

1999 THE PRECIPICE AND OTHER CATASTROPHES (Collected Plays, bilingual edition, English/German). Poetry Salzburg (Austria). Radio play adaptation by Deutschland Radio (Berlin) 1998.

1998 FEDERMAN : FROM A to X-X-X-X [A Recyclopedic Narrative, Edited by Larry McCaffery, Douglas Rice, Thomas Hartl, in collaboration with the author]. San Diego State University Press. Limited edition.

1996 THE LINE (Fiction, chapbook, special limited edition). The Club of Odd Volumes (Amherst, New York). Limited edition. Translated into French.

It was his generosity which initially impressed me, the continuity and inclusion in his storytelling. In fact, being in the same room with Federman is a lot like reading one of his books--sprinkled with double-dashes, at times conspicuously free of punctuation. At other times, he rewrites the story while you watch, and in his transparency, in his willingness to show you the form, you forget there is a writer at all...

CLICK HERE TO READ THE INNER-VIEW IN THE FALL 2006 ONLINE EDITION OF RAIN TAXI...

Starcherone Books, Inc., has set up a memorial fund in Raymond's memory. Books published by Starcherone Books subsidized with money from the fund will bear the inscription, "This publication was made possible with funds from the Raymond Federman Memorial Fund for Innovative Fiction."

Starcherone Books is a 501(c)(3) non-profit and all contributions are tax deductible. Designate this fund and make checks payable to: